The ERA Is Born
In the 1920s, the U.S. Constitution only had one right for women, and that is to vote; but some women were not content with that. In the Constitution there was one word that wasn't written... woman. So a movement to change that emerged.
Alice Paul: The Mother Of The ERA
"We shall not be safe until the principle of equal rights is written into the framework of our government." - Alice Paul (1923) "While in London from 1906 to 1909, [Alice] Paul became politically active and unafraid to use dramatic tactics in support of a cause...she was arrested on several occasions, serving time in jail and going on a hunger strike. When she returned to the United States in 1910, Paul became involved in the women’s suffrage movement." [10] |
In 1923, on the 75th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, Alice Paul introduced the first Equal Rights Amendment into Congress nicknamed the "Lucretia Mott Amendment," named for the early women's rights pioneer.
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The SupportThe National Women's Party and many professional women, like Amelia Earhart, supported the ERA.
"I know a great many boys who should be making pies – and a great many girls who would be better off in manual training. There is no reason why a woman can’t hold any position... providing she can overcome prejudices and show ability."
-Amelia Earhart, In a meeting with President Hoover in the White House to lobby for the ERA. (1932) The ERA was introduced in every session of Congress after 1923, but it failed to reach the floor of the Senate or the House of Representatives. In 1943, Alice Paul rewrote the ERA to reflect the 15th and 19th Amendments in what became known as the "Alice Paul Amendment."
The 'Alice Paul Amendment,' reads, 'Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.'
“Proponents of the ERA felt that protective legislation enforced women’s status as second class citizens and that absolute legal equality was necessary to combat discrimination.” [16]
"In the early 1940s, the Republican Party and then the Democratic Party added support of the Equal Rights Amendment to their platforms." [7]
Through the 1940s, Much of the ERAs support was due to the changes brought by World War II. With men at war, women and minorities were left to fill jobs that initially belonged to white men. However, during World War II, “women workers producing war material demonstrated that they could do virtually any job,” and politicians “sought to capitalize on the feelings of gratitude” by supporting the ERA. [12]
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The OppositionDemanding to represent women's interest as well, opponents of the ERA argued that women should be free to be different from men. The opposition included women's groups like the National Women's Trade Union League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Their argument was that women deserved preferential treatment in society.
"The inherent differences are permanent. Women will always need many laws different from those needed by men."
-opponents to the ERA “[Sex-based legislation] excluded women from certain jobs in some professions that were deemed too physically difficult for women’s fragile physiques. Some laws regulated the hours a woman could work so she would still have time to take care of her children. Those who supported protective legislation believed that an equal rights amendment would void this type of law and leave women open to exploitation.” [16]
"[The ERA] seriously menaced...the unity of the home and family life."
- National Council of Catholic Women ''Women are different from men, their physical functions are different, and the future of the race depends upon their ability to produce healthy children.''
- Eleanor Roosevelt. “Mrs. Roosevelt's reason for opposing the equal rights amendment for 40 years: because she thought it would undermine the protective laws she and other reformers had sought for women in the workplace - factory safety standards, minimum-wage laws, the 48-hour workweek, elimination of night work and exclusion from dangerous jobs. Mrs. Roosevelt came out of the tradition of protective labor laws and thought the E.R.A would undo those laws.” [13]
"A 1945 brochure circulated by the National Committee to Defeat the Un-Equal Rights Amendment charged that the ERA was 'vague and legally unsound, unnecessary, and dangerous.'" National Archives, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives [17]
"In the 1950s, support for the ERA began to dwindle. Men returned home from war, anxious to return to work and expected to find women waiting for them at home, not in factories or at desk jobs. As a result, women were let go from their war-time jobs, and 'the anxiety of readjustment translated into a desire for the reinstitution of traditional family life supported by traditional sex roles.'"[12]
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